1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer graphics and, in particular, to techniques for physics-inspired upsampling for cloth simulation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Improving realism is a key factor driving development of new generations of real-time computer graphics systems. Tremendous strides have been made improving realism with respect to lighting, surface features and texture, and dynamics for rigid objects. However, simulating the dynamics of cloth movement in real-time graphics systems has conventionally been limited to very coarse levels of detail because of hard real-time computational limitations.
Highly detailed cloth simulation can produce visually appealing animation, with a high degree of realism. Such improved realism can add materially to the overall quality of a real-time three-dimensional (3D) application. However, burdensome computational loads conventionally associated with highly detailed simulation techniques generally preclude these techniques from many popular real-time 3D applications, such as 3D games.
Cloth simulation in 3D games is useful in modeling the dynamics of clothing worn by characters within a scene and the dynamics of environmental items, such as curtains or flags, which may populate the scene. Certain games may pre-compute detailed cloth animation for a higher-degree of realism. However, generality of motion is lost with conventional pre-computation techniques. Other games may preserve generality of motion by implementing real-time cloth simulation. However, to maintain real-time performance, the games can typically only implement coarse cloth simulation.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a realistic cloth simulation technique that is suitable for real-time 3D applications.